Josh Bernoff is mede-auteur van de succesvolle award-winning en best-selling boeken Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies en het onlangs verschenen boek Empowered: unleash your employees, energize your customers, transform your business. Het eerdere boek Groundswell staat ook wel bekend als het beste boek dat ooit geschreven is over marketing en media. Ook Empowered is buitengewoon goed ontvangen.
Op de 15e maart spreekt Josh Bernoff op het B2B marketing forum, waar Bijgespijkerd zelf ook aanwezig zal zijn. Als voorproefje heb ik Josh enkele vragen voorgelegd, die ons een beeld geven van zijn visie. Zoals je zult begrijpen, alles is in het Engels.
What will you talk about on the B2Bmarketingforum on 15 march, what can we expect?
Attendees will see how social media can help B2B marketing, just as it can help B2C marketing. I’ll also be showing some statistics from Europe about which customers have the most influence, and sharing how successful companies have tapped into the creativity of their employees in new forms of marketing.
Lot of people think social media is more interesting for B2C than for B2B. I don’t believe in this, because social is about relations, and those are even more important in B2B than in B2C. Whats your opinion?
The interesting thing about B2B is that a B2B company’s customers have a lot in common. You may be selling to IT buyers, or office managers, or real estate brokers, but whoever you are reaching, they have similar jobs and similar problems. This makes it highly valuable to get them talking to each other, and to put your company in the position of offering valuable connections and insights about their particular job problems.
The groundswell was about the growing importance of social media, empowered is about how to use this important new communicatiechannel. What’s going to be the next step? How do you see the future of social media marketing?
Social media is going to be part of, not just marketing, but everything companies do – customer service, human resources, and product development for example. Right now every single part of a company uses the Internet – in a similar way, we will all use social applications, both to connect to customers and connect employees. Social media marketers, who are now in charge of social media inside companies, will become more like the experts that people throughout the company consult for help. Focusing down on marketing specifically, I certainly the future world as being one in which more people are social more of the time, especially through mobile devices. This means social has to be part of every marketing budget.
We investigated the social media behaviour of Dutch companies. The main objective for using social media in 2011 will be ‘boost sales’. What do you think about this? Is it the right objective?
For some companies, “boost sales” is the right objective. But if you sell automation systems for oil refineries, maybe your objective on social is to generate leads. It might also be to create awareness, if you’re an unknown company or entering a new market. Social feeds many objectives. The key is just to know which one you are after before you start, so you can measure if you are succeeding.
The same research told us that 47% of all companies doesn’t measure the results of their social media operations. Main reason: we don’t know how. What is your advice in measuring social media operations?
These people are in trouble. Their budgets will get cut before they get going. You need metrics including share of voice online, leads generated, or reduction in service costs – it depends on your objective. It’s easy to measure activity, but smart companies are finding ways to tie it to business results.
2010 was all about social media strategy, what do you think will be the magic word for 2011?
In 2011, the focus will be on preparing and organizing your company to embrace social throughout the business.